


Love Through Time

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:37:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: From a prompt: Tony discovers an old drawing of, and finally remembers, his invisible friend Stephen from when he was a child.





	Love Through Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceiolnunicornimagines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceiolnunicornimagines/gifts).



> A fill for [this prompt](http://ironstrangeprompts.tumblr.com/post/182389678606) on Tumblr.
> 
> Also wow I forgot Tony's parents died at the same time xD FIXED.
> 
> EDIT: A line from this fic has been turned into BEAUTIFUL calligraphy by clair! [Check it out on her Instagram!](https://www.instagram.com/p/Btu2r5BFys3/)

“Mr. Stark,” Edward Jarvis greeted. “I’ve come with the items you requested.”

“Hm?’ Tony’s mind leapt out of his musing. He was in his laboratory, trying to solve a particularly sticky schematics issue with a new suit he was developing. “I didn’t request anything.”

“You did, sir,” Jarvis gently corrected. “You said I should salvage whatever I felt was necessary of your family’s summer home, and bring them to you.”

“Oh...yeah.”

The Starks’ summer home. It was a white elephant; nobody wanted to rent it, and selling it off was proving to be troublesome, considering the high real estate rates in the city it was in.

Tony had thought it best to sell or auction off the things in it, and let the space itself rot, if that was its fate.

“So the auction guys have everything else, right? How much was left?”

“Not much, sir,” Jarvis informed him. “I took the liberty of using the old toy box in the nursery as a receptacle. It was where most of the items were stored, anyway. This was in the toy box, as well.”

Jarvis held out a small, plain wooden box to him.

“Very good, Jarvis, thanks,” he absently said as he took it.

When Jarvis had left, Tony opened the box.

There were old medals from summer school, old photographs...encouraging notes from his mother. Those were always a treat.

Then there were the old drawings.

The crayon sketches Maria Stark had kept, for no good reason.

One of them made Tony pause.

Made time stop.

 

***

 

On the sketch was a tall, lanky man with a long face.

A loose blue long-sleeved shirt.

A red cloak.

Blue-green eyes.

And gray hair brushed back from his temples.

The man was standing beside a little boy with dark hair, whom Tony presumed to be himself.

Little Tony held a wrench (it was called an adjustable spanner, he knew now) on his right hand.

The man in the cloak had a halo of golden light around his left hand.

It was a cute, innocent child’s drawing.

Which was why Tony couldn’t explain the sudden, splitting headache he got after looking at it.

“FRIDAY,” he said to the room, “save everything, but keep the simulations running. I need a nap.”

 _“Will do, boss,”_ the room answered.

Tony dragged himself to the couch in the living room upstairs, and threw himself down on it. He didn’t make it to any of the bedrooms. He didn’t really want to.

He just wanted his headache to go away.

So, right after collapsing, he closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.

 

***

The very first time Stephen made an appearance was when Tony was still in the cradle.

It stands to reason Tony was too little to remember.

Baby Tony had been awakened by the loud male voice yelling _“NO!!”_ that came out of nowhere. He had been frightened. He had cried.

He had been too little to comprehend the loud noises. The lights that had flooded his room. The tall shadow that had been bent over his cradle and his unsuspecting self. The screaming that had come from his tiny, panicked lungs.

The large, shaking hands that had picked him up, rocked him until he calmed down.

And the soft voice that had said “Ssh, I’m here now. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You’re loved. You’re safe.”

He was starting to fall asleep again, when he felt himself being lowered gently back down to his cradle. He fidgeted, unable to help himself.

That was when his mother raced into the room to pick him up, hold him close.

She said only the same things that the low, male voice had said.

And, doubly reassured, little Tony was able to go back to sleep, finally.

 

***

 

The first time he realized he was a Stark was when his father slapped him across the face.

He’d fallen from his bike, scraped his knee, and wept in pain in front of his father.

His father had not liked that he had fallen off the bike. He liked it even less that he cried afterwards.

“Stark men are made of iron,” his father had told him.

He was 6 years old. Before that time, he had thought he was...

...happy.

Not a Stark.

Not a Stark _man_.

And certainly not made of iron.

But these didn’t make sense to Tony, at the time. These words, the sting, just burned into him, without explanation.

His father walked away, and told everyone watching to leave along with him. “He fell on his own, let him learn to stand on his own,” was his specific instruction.

So 6-year-old Tony found himself alone, sitting on the ground, sobbing and nursing his wounded knee.

A shadow fell over him. He looked up to see a tall, lanky man, wearing a large red cape that blocked Tony’s view of the sun.

“That doesn’t look good,” the man said. His voice was low, soothing and oddly familiar.

Tony wiped his nose. “Who’re you?”

“Someone who shouldn’t be here...”

The man sat in front of Tony.

“...but I guess supernatural threats aren’t all I’m here to shield you from.”

He reached out as if to touch Tony’s knee. Tony flinched but did not move away. His hand stopped short of skin making contact.

Tony noticed that his hand was shaking.

A halo of golden light appeared on the man’s hand. Tony could feel it: it was warm.

Within seconds, the scrape on his knee healed. It was as if it had never even been there.

“Wow!” Tony exclaimed happily. “You fixed it! Thanks, mister!”

The man smiled.

“No need to thank me,” he said to the child. “I’m a doctor. It’s what I do.”

 

***

 

“Who’s that, Tony?”

He held up his unfinished crayon drawing for his mother to see.

On the drawing was a tall, thin man with a red cloak. Tony was still starting to draw a dark-haired little boy standing beside him.

“My friend,” Tony proudly answered. “Doctor Magic. We’ve been hanging out.”

Maria Stark smiled. “Is that really his name?”

Tony shrugged. “I call him that. He’s my friend, so I got to name him.”

Tony went back to finishing his drawing.

Maria Stark wondered if she had reason to be nervous. Tony was always surrounded by adults tasked by her husband Howard to look after him. But she didn’t remember any one of them having blue-green eyes and black hair that grayed at the temples.

Still...a man in a cape, and a glowing hand? Surely this was someone Tony had made up.

“I’m really glad you made a friend, Tony. Maybe your father and I can meet him sometime?”

“No...Doctor Magic says only I can see him. He says that’s because he’s a wizard.”

“A wizard, is he?”

“Yep! He’s magic. That’s how he fixes things.”

He just had a thought. He put down his crayons and faced his mom, his face beaming with excitement.

“Mom, when I grow up, I wanna fix things, too. I wanna be a wizard!”

“Oh dear,” Maria chuckled, “don’t let your father hear that.”

Tony pouted.

 

***

 

“That’s a bad idea, Tony,” Doctor Magic said.

Still pouting, he demanded: “Why _can’t_ I be a wizard?”

Doctor Magic laid his hand on Tony’s head.

“We all have our place,” he said to the child gently. “We’re both around to fix things. I can do it with magic. You can do it...in other ways.”

“I don’t _want_ to do it in other ways! I want to be like you!”

Doctor Magic was about to protest, but the child lunged forward and hugged him, hard. It took the breath out of his lungs for a bit.

That was the only way Tony knew how to hold his first friend. His _only_ friend.

“When I’m a wizard,” Tony muttered, “I can be with you all the time. You never have to leave. And we can go anywhere. We can go away.”

Doctor Magic pulled away briefly, so he could go down on one knee. That way, he could wrap his arms around Tony.

His magic cloak wrapped itself around Tony, too. The only time Tony ever felt warmer, was in the arms of his mother.

“I’ve already stayed too long, Tony,” Doctor Magic whispered. “I just...didn’t leave right away because I wanted to see you happy and smiling a bit longer. I need to leave again soon.”

“Take me with you?” Tony pleaded. “And my Mom, too?”

Doctor Magic sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the boy. “It’s for the best.”

He wouldn’t leave Tony upset, though. They spent the rest of that last summer day together, with Doctor Magic conjuring fanciful images and stories out of thin air, amusing the little boy until tiredness and sleep took him.

6-year-old Tony woke in his bed alone, from a dream of blue-green butterflies and a soft, low voice telling him about how he was safe, how he was cared for, and how he would never be alone.

 

***

 

Tony couldn’t sleep. So many thoughts were running through his head.

And the headache still wouldn’t vanish.

“FRIDAY,” he said into thin air, “dial the Sanctum. Try to reach Doctor Strange for me.”

After a long pause, thin air reported: _“Sorry, boss. Wong says he’s not available. Says he’s on a mission.”_

“When will he be back?”

_“Didn’t say, boss.”_

For a moment he considered going back downstairs and looking at the drawing in the box again. But something told him it wouldn’t make his headache any better.

There was no earthly explanation for why he’d made a drawing of a man who looked like Doctor Strange when he was little.

The memories were a blur, and trying to make sense of them was physically painful, but he was sure he’d made that drawing. He remembered showing it to his mother.

He remembered golden light, and the scar on his knee disappearing. How warm it was to be enveloped in a red cloak, those arms.

But it couldn’t be him.

 

 

***

 

Tony saw him again on the night of his parents' funeral. He was 21 years old, out drinking and partying, as perhaps everyone expected. It was “his way of dealing with grief.”

He was fumbling in his pocket for the keys to his car, when he saw someone coming in out of the shadows, from the corner of his eye.

The newcomer stepped into the light: it was a tall guy wearing a weird blue tunic and a ridiculously swishy red cape.

“Hey, man,” Tony greeted, slurring. “Neat costume. It isn’t Halloween, though, right?”

“Tony,” the man said firmly. “Don’t get in that car.”

“Mmh? Why not?”

“In a matter of minutes, a powerful, formless entity will find its way to you. If you’re on the road when it happens, it’s going to be much harder for me to protect you.”

“Protect me?” Tony laughed incredulously. “From what? Vicious balloon animals?” He waved the man away. “Get lost, doc.”

“Doc,” The man repeated. He stepped forward. “You remember, don’t you? You know who I am.”

Tony stopped short of pressing the button to unlock his car.

“Can’t be him, though,” he answered, without looking at the man. “Wasn’t real.”

The man snatched his car keys from his hand, held them up to the level of Tony’s eyes.

“That real enough for you?”

With one swift gesture, the keys in his hand disappeared.

Tony chuckled.

“You know I got spares of those. But I’m not taking them out now, ‘cause you’re just gonna magic them away again.”

“I know you have a spare key. I’m imploring you not to use it.”

“Sure you’re not a mugger? ‘Cause a mugger’s easier...”

“The worst-case scenario is that in the morning, people are going to find the wreck of your car at the bottom of a cliff and conclude that you’d driven yourself off the road while drunk. Which, in fairness, is something you’re likely to do in this state.

“What will _really_ happen is that a creature will attack you, you will lose control of the car, and the creature will manage to kill you, as he wanted.” His voice softened unexpectedly. “Trust me, Tony. I fix things. Let me fix this one before it breaks.”

Inebriated as he was, Tony had a hard time looking the guy in the eye. But those blue-green-what-the-fuck-color-is-that magic eyes just drew him in.

“Look.” He faced the newcomer, though he had a hard time staying upright. “If you’re who I think you are, I haven’t seen you in years, and you don’t get to make demands of me. I don’t owe you shit.”

“There’s no time - “ the newcomer began. But then he caught himself and sighed.

“- you’re right, Tony. You deserve an explanation. So this is my proposition. Stay with me here, where I can keep you safe. Sober up just a little, just enough. And I promise I’ll explain everything.”

Tony considered this for a moment. He truly wasn’t in a hurry to go home.

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to sober up in this weirdo’s company. Besides, there was something about the way the man said “keep you safe” that sounded...real.

 

***

 

“Before you say anything,” Tony began, “I want to let you know how shitty you are.”

Tony sat on the hood of his car, nursing a cup of coffee his companion had magicked out of nowhere.

His companion wasn’t drinking anything. He simply sat beside Tony, alert and listening.

“You stayed with me just one summer, then _whoosh_ , you were gone,” Tony kept griping. “Some imaginary friend. I thought you guys could be summoned on command.”

“We’re not genies in lamps,” the older man retorted. “And I don’t even _count_ as imaginary. I’m flesh and blood, just like you.”

“Yeah? Then you got a name, too? Pretty sure it’s not ‘Doctor Magic.’ “

“Close, actually.” The man smiled. “My name is Doctor Stephen Strange. You can call me Stephen.”

“How about I call you a jerk?”

Stephen said nothing.

“I waited and waited, but you didn’t come back.”

He said it into his coffee cup, almost as if Stephen shouldn’t have overheard. He sounded like a little kid. 21 years old, a man now, old enough to drink himself stupid and drive himself off a cliff.

But to Stephen, he sounded 6 years old and lost.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t with you just that summer.”

Tony snorted. “You were the only playmate I had at the time. I’d recall if you were around.”

“Do you remember having dreams about me, at various points in your life?”

Tony blinked.

This was the first time dreams were brought up.

On the night before he was shipped off to boarding school, he had dreamed of Doctor Magic holding him close, saying he would be all right...and he remembered waking up from that dream thinking yeah, being away from his Mom and his bedroom-turned-laboratory wouldn’t be so bad...

He also remembered dreams where Doctor Magic fought off things that attacked him - a demon, a dragon, a _giant disembodied cloud_. Sometimes, Doctor Magic came off the battle badly wounded, and just left...but sometimes, he emerged relatively unscathed, and in a good mood, and he stuck around a bit longer.

At times like those, Doctor Magic spirited little Tony away. He showed Tony other dimensions, other timelines - realities where his father wasn’t a gigantic dick, and where he didn’t have a father, or a mother even. Places where flora and fauna that didn’t exist on earth, thrived. Animals that talked, colors that the human mind could never have conceived of...

Remembering all this gave Tony a headache. He touched his fingers to his temple.

“...Ow.”

“Yep.” Stephen was unfazed by the overt display of pain. “That was me. Saying hi.”

When Tony was able to shake off the discomfort, he continued:

“You...really jumped through time, into my dreams,” - he narrowed his eyes at Stephen - “just to say hi?”

“Well, no. Technically they weren’t dreams.” Stephen scratched his head, as he thought of the words that might explain it best. “Each time you had a ‘dream,’ it was me pulling you into...I don’t know what else to call it except a ‘mirror dimension.’ Most of the time, it was because I had to fight an entity that was coming for you. Then wipe as much of our encounter from your memory as I could, before restoring you to reality.”

Tony’s still-sobering mind was having trouble keeping up.

“Wiping the what from my what?” He shook his head, in a feeble attempt to shake understanding into it. “You can do that??”

Stephen looked a little guilty.

“Memory spells aren’t foolproof. They’re like - throwing a blanket over the part of your brain that remembers certain things. They don’t really erase anything, but rather _obscure_ them, until they’re triggered and the blanket comes off.

“In your case, it seems that while you remember having had a ‘Doctor Magic’ to play with as a child, chances are you’ll remember every encounter we’ve ever had. And if they don’t make sense, your mind is going to process them as dreams.” He narrowed his eyes at Tony, as if studying how his brain worked. “I think I’ll have to do something about that...”

Unsettled by his staring, Tony leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees.

“You promised me an explanation,” he reminded Stephen. “Why are you even...stalking me? If that’s the word? Why bother with me at all?”

Stephen leaned forward as well, linked his fingers together.

“I can tell you all of this, because in the end I’m going to wipe every memory you’ve ever had of me, and you won’t remember a thing.”

“Cool. Fun. Hit me.”

He wasn’t taking this seriously. Which worked to Stephen’s benefit. He didn’t want a scene at the end of all of this.

“Many years from now,” Stephen began, “a powerful time-traveling being is going to pick a fight with me. It’s going to be a big fight. He’s going to want me dead.

“But since he won’t be able to kill me, he’ll go back in time and try to kill the people who are most important to me. I’ve already recruited the help of interdimensional beings to make sure my parents and family are safe. He won’t be able to get to them, so they’ll be able to get to their natural ends...”

“ ‘Natural ends’?” Tony interrupted.

Stephen answered, “They’ll die, Tony. All of them. Leaving me alone. Like they’re supposed to.”

The resigned tone in his voice told Tony what he needed to know: Doctor Stephen Strange travels through time, but doesn’t meddle with fate.

That wasn’t enough of an answer for the young, emotionally fragile Tony.

“However, the help I’ve been able to secure is limited to people with whom I share blood ties.” Stephen looked at his younger companion. “And because _you_ don’t...he can get to you.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because I care about you, Tony. That makes you a target.”

“Then why didn’t you stop my dad from hurting me or my Mom?” he asked, in a deliberately hostile tone. “If it’s true that you cared...you were there, you must have known. Why didn’t you help?”

It was a loaded question. Hard enough to answer while looking into an angry young Tony’s eyes. So Stephen looked away.

“I can’t interfere with what happened to you. I can only save your life, during all those times you were never meant to die.”

“Okay, then answer me this, wise guy: why do you _have_ to save my life? Why not just let me die?”

He could almost see Stephen’s heart breaking through his eyes.

“Because you’re important, Tony.”

“Oh yeah? Important to whom?”

“The world, mostly. But also me.” He took a deep breath, and sighed out, “I love you, Tony. The older you. The one you’ll be decades from now.”

Tony fell silent.

“I know that of all the crazy things I’ve told you tonight, this is the craziest, so I’m going to give you a moment to process that...”

Tony took that moment. When he was done, he asked slowly, “Why am I not allowed to remember you telling me that?”

“Because, in the future, you don’t love me back. You don’t even know how I feel.” Stephen smiled sadly at him. “That’s how it is. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Tony thought about it some more. Then he leapt off the hood to pace a bit.

“You love me, though, right?” he said loudly to Stephen, presently. “Now - I mean, right now? You love me? Enough to save my life, at least?”

Stephen noticed a young couple walking nearby, staring at Tony and whispering. He realized they must feel weird, watching Tony pointing to his car and yelling “You love me” at it.

As per the deflection spell he’d always been careful to cast, nobody but Tony could see him.

Fortunately, a drunk, raving young Tony wasn’t exactly an uncommon sight in those parts. (By this point, Tony was actually completely sober. But nobody else needed to know that.)

“Tony,” he answered, “I love the version of you that I met after he’s gone through all the pain. All the heartbreak. All the mistakes he never got the chance to fix. The person who had survived so long and so well without me. Given the chance, I would love him over and over.”

Stephen left his seat on the hood, walked up closer to the young man.

“But if you’re not going to be that person...I don’t know how I’ll feel. If you grow up remembering me, and the things I’ve said and done, you may no longer be the Tony Stark I met. The one I’d love through time.”

Tony stuck his hands in his pockets.

“So,” he carefully began, “let me get this straight - if I remember you...you may not love me? Ever?”

Stephen nodded. “That’s...one of many likely outcomes.”

“And if you don’t love me...the creature you’re fighting now doesn’t come after me at all. Do I get that right?”

Stephen paused, then nodded again.

“That...is also a likely outcome.”

“Doesn’t that mean it’s better for you to let me remember, and to just not fall in love with me as a result?”

A look of sadness crossed Stephen’s face.

“Tony,” he said softly. “What makes you think I’d want a future where I don’t fall in love with you?”

Tony stared long and hard at the person who had just said what was either the sweetest or the most terrifying thing ever said to him.

Stephen returned that stare evenly. He had only told the truth so far. There was no reason to falter.

Eventually, Tony looked away, asked, “Am I really worth it?”

“You’re worth everything.”

“...All right. Then I don’t care. I don’t care if I don’t remember you.” He looked back at Stephen again, spread his arms wide. “If there’s a chance in hell you’ll fall for me, I’ll take it.”

His sudden light-heartedness worried Stephen. Was there something the boy misunderstood? “Tony...”

“Listen, doc. This is just me being practical. A magic man falls for me in the future, goes back in time and saves my life - why would I say no to that?”

He looked Stephen up and down and smirked.

“Besides...I can do much worse, you know?”

Both of Stephen’s eyebrows rose. He laughed incredulously.

“Are you seriously hitting on me right now?” He reached out for a friendly pat on the boy’s upper arm. “Grow some decent facial hair first, then we’ll talk.”

Tony caught his hand. Held it. It trembled in his grip.

“Doc...”

Then he caught Stephen’s gaze, held it, too.

“Don’t let older me stay in the dark about your feelings, okay?” He released Stephen’s hand. “I don’t know what goes down when it happens...but at the very least...I’m sure it won’t kill him to know.”

“Won’t it?” Stephen’s smile was sad again. “Trust me, Tony, your future self has a _lot_ of problems. Adding to them is...not in my job description.”

The smile Tony shot back at him was radiant with confidence.

“Haven’t you heard, doc? Stark men are made of iron. He can take it.”

His fearlessness was infectious. Stephen found himself feeling like things were on the right track.

Much like how the older Tony made him feel.

As Stephen thought about this, there was a rumbling, a sound of thunder just over their heads.

And there was no time to think of anything else.

“He’s here,” Stephen pointed out. “It’s time, Tony.”

Tony nodded, suddenly grim. “Do it, doc.”

Stephen took a deep breath, then held his hand up in front of Tony’s face. Already, a golden glow was starting to emerge from the center of his palm.

Tony closed his eyes.

 

 

***

 

These were the memories hidden away:

All the kind words. All the peaceful embraces. The other worlds and dimensions and the blue-green butterflies that used to give the little boy so much comfort to watch. The laughter and corny jokes and assurances that everything was going to be all right.

All the way back to the cradle.

Except.

Stephen was going to let him keep one.

The only memory that was harmless to keep.

The memory of lights, then soothing darkness, and warmth, and a voice telling him he was safe.

 

(Calligraphy by [Clair](https://www.instagram.com/p/Btu2r5BFys3/))

 

***

 

“He may not come back today,” Wong warned him.

“Yep, I heard you.” Tony proceeded into the Sanctum.

“Those might be wilted by the time he returns...”

“No problem.” Tony glanced down at the bouquet of blue and mint-green roses in his arm. “I’ll just get new ones.”

He could _hear_ Wong shaking his head behind him. Wong had a way of shaking his head that carried across the room.

Something told Tony he’d better get used to that head-shake.

Per tradition, Stephen was supposed to appear in the topmost floor of the Sanctum after a mission.

That was where Tony saw it fit to wait.

Hours passed. He’d paced up and down the floor. Finished reading through his daily news feed twice over (narrowly avoiding some unnecessarily nasty Twitter wars in the process). _Barely_ kept himself from touching anything, thus avoiding certain death.

Soon it was getting dark. Still no Stephen. With a sigh, Tony prepared to go home. He was going to take the flowers down to Wong, who hopefully had a large vase stashed away...

Then the portal appeared.

Tony stood with the flowers in his arms, waiting for Stephen to step through.

Except Stephen _stumbled_ through.

His robe and cloak were drenched in green liquid. Which, Tony was willing to bet, was actually someone else’s blood.

The flowers fell to the floor. Tony rushed to Stephen’s side.

Stephen failed to register surprise as soon as he saw Tony in the Sanctum. “It’s done,” he said between fast, ragged breaths. “It’s done.”

“You got him?” Tony held him up by the arm. Stephen leaned his weight on Tony, used him to stay upright.

“Yeah. Yeah, I got him.” He blinked, suddenly aware of where he was and who he was talking to. “Wait. Got who?”

“The creature that was trying to kill me in the past. You were chasing him down, right?”

Stephen looked at Tony, eyes wide.

“Yeah. Took him down just now. Slippery bastard. But you’re not supposed to know about that...”

Tony took out a piece of folded paper from his pocket, showed it to Stephen.

It was the drawing he’d made as a child.

The surprise in Stephen’s face vanished as soon as he saw it.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.” Tony folded the paper and stuck it back in his coat pocket before Stephen could get any green gunk on it. “So, when were you going to tell me?”

Stephen stood apart from Tony. Brushed some of the blood off his person seemingly as a way of gaining a semblance of dignity.

“Never,” he answered matter-of-factly. “Because this was a Master of the Mystic Arts problem. Iron Men not required.”

“Not about the mission, smartass.” Tony wouldn’t stop staring into his face. “I meant how you felt. What you told me on the night of my parents’ funeral.”

Stephen was still catching his breath. He kept his eyes on Tony’s all the while.

“I think I’d better learn how to level up those memory spells,” he muttered.

“Yeah.” Tony turned, started walking away. “Clearly, you suck at them.”

He picked up the roses from the floor, brought them to Stephen, who received them with a puzzled look.

“What are these for?” Stephen asked.

“So you won’t get too surprised when I do this.”

Tony leaned forward and touched their lips together.

The roses ended up on the floor again.

“Jesus,” Tony laughed. “You have any idea how hard those were to find? Handle with care, okay?”

“You dropped them first,” Stephen pointed out.

“Fair enough. Look.” Tony put on his “boardroom” voice, the one time-tested for getting desirable results. “You once told me you might not have feelings for me anymore if I remembered you. Now I do. I remember all of you. From the time you saved me back in the cradle and told me I was loved.” He spread his arms wide. “What now?”

“What now?” Stephen said breathlessly. “Here’s what now.”

Stephen kissed him again, shamelessly getting green gunk all over Tony’s newest Tom Ford.

At that precise moment, all parties in the room stopped caring about the roses on the floor.


End file.
